I just entered the Oilpro Halloween Photo Contest. It’s supposed to be for work, but since I’ve been laid off for a year now, I couldn’t post any photos of scary co-workers or office decorations.
I did the next best thing. I posted a couple of photos I took at the National Museum of Funeral History last week. They had a pretty cool Haunted House.
Check it out.
http://oilpro.com/gallery/1808/23697/scary-pirate
Any of my offshore peeps, feel free to join in here.
Today’s prompt for Just Jot It January is ‘robust’.
Up until a couple of months ago, I would’ve used that word to define the oilfield… “booming, powerful, potent, vigorous, prosperous, tough, roaring, rough, rugged, vital…” . Yes, it was all of those things.
Now, I don’t know what to call it. Busted maybe, but it’s certainly no longer “robust”. 🙁
The big discussion I’ve been having with everyone is over the price of oil and how it will affect us (we all work in oil related industries).
I’m sure for most people, it must be just such a nice bonus, especially this time of year. To have the price of a barrel of oil cut in half over the last few months is probably giving most people a little bit extra to spend on Christmas presents.
I think it’s got to be a boon for the world economy. Oil plays such a HUGE part in our everyday lives. Most people don’t even realize.
It’s not only used to fuel almost the entire transportation industry worldwide (there are a few electrically powered cars now), but it’s used in so many OTHER things we never really think about.
Things like plastic, which is itself used in almost everything. Like pharmaceuticals, fabrics, lubricants, fertilizers, chemicals, CDs, artificial limbs, and here’s a link to a list of some other uses.
Of course, I do have a life outside of my job. 😉 I love it when the price of gas goes down and I can think about going exploring around my neighborhood again. I appreciate when the price of a plane ticket goes down. I love it when the prices of all the things I have to buy drop because the price to deliver them to the market drops. (Why does it always seem that it doesn’t drop as much as it SHOULD?)
But, since I’m working in the oilfield (again), on a drillship, looking for MORE oil, when the price of oil drops it’s not usually a good thing. The oil companies we work for definitely take note, and things start slowing down out here.
New projects are delayed or canceled. Boats and rigs are put into storage. Crews are laid off. Like most people, we’re also living paycheck to paycheck.
So the rumors are flying. We’ve all heard about companies already paying millions of dollars to back out of contracts. Projects being cancelled. Rigs with no contracts. People in super-high demand a couple of months ago unable to find work and others being laid off. Companies starting to change their policies so that working for them is not as good as it was last year (they realize we are not as willing to just jump ship if we don’t know we have another job or 2 waiting in the wings).
We’re all wondering if our companies are going to keep their contracts (and so we will be able to keep our jobs). We’re wondering how low will the price of oil go this time and how deep the cuts.
Yeah, I think it’s a help to the worldwide economy when the price of oil drops. I also know that the price of oil affects the entire oilfield and everyone related to it. It’s a HUGE influence all over the Southern US. So many people all over Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida work offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, they support entire counties in those states with their paychecks!
The shale boom from Texas up through Oklahoma and the Dakotas (and all the way up into the Northeast) has helped bring the US out of the “great recession” (finally). Shale drilling is already screaming to a halt. The boom in those states will go with it.
So we’re all just wondering, how low can the price of oil go and for how long?
RIGZONE – Career Spotlight: Petroleum Engineers.
If I had really thought about it, I would have gone into something like this instead of Chemical Engineering when I went back to school. I only did Chemical cause I live in Lake Jackson, Texas, near Houston. The whole area is a huge center of chemical plants, Dow, BASF, Shintech, etc. I figured I would always be able to get a good job. I only went back to school to make my grandmother happy. I already had a good career (and an AAS degree) and figured if I went back to school it better be for something that would pay the bills better than what I was doing already (working offshore as captain of supply boats, etc). I didn’t really understand what exactly Chemical Engineers did 🙁
I wound up getting a degree in Math, just so I could get out of school and back to work doing something I still really loved (offshore running boats). Petroleum Engineers work offshore a lot and it seems I probably could have found work as a reservoir engineer if I had really tried hard using the math degree. I wasn’t really all that interested in it tho. I was much more interested in getting back out on a boat 😉 I did manage to do that pretty quickly after I got my degree. I’d been working throughout school, summers, holidays,etc so it wasn’t really an issue.
Now that the oilfield is booming again, they need these Petroleum Engineers, along with geologists, etc. I had 2 lady geologists out on my rig last hitch and at least one ‘mud engineer’. The real demand is for subsea engineers. Maybe Rigzone will post an article about that soon. That seems to be pretty interesting. Actually, all of it is interesting, its just a little bit different angles of attacking the problem. Finding out whats down there, how to get at it, how to put it to use…